The View From Ninety (reflections On How To Live A Long, Contented Life)

By (author) Handy Charles
Description:

FROM THE BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE EMPTY RAINCOAT AND UNDERSTANDING ORGANISATIONS.

A Financial Times Best Business Book of 2025

Over a span of seven decades, Charles Handy was, variously, a businessman, a writer, a philanthropist and a philosopher. Not even a stroke as he approached the age of 90 dimmed his intellectual curiosity or his immense zest for life.

In this, his final book, written from the vantage point of a contemplative old age and drawing on his articles for The Idler he shares his thoughts on the big questions with which we all grapple:

What things really matter?
What daily worries should we learn to treat as unimportant?
How do we become more accepting of ourselves and of those around us?
How do we discover purpose in our everyday existence? How do we cope with grief and loss?


Drawing in part on his own experience, in part on the wisdom of others, he sets out the principles of enjoying a fulfilled and contented life, and gently points the way to the practicalities of achieving it.

Review quote:
A guru
Review quote:
A wise and gentle commentator
Review quote:
Offers wit, wisdom and gratitude. […] Charles Handy’s 19th and last book is not his heftiest. But it may be, in some important respects, his weightiest. These final breaths of wisdom sacrifice little of Handy’s wit, charm and storytelling skill.
Review quote:
Rightly treasured as Charles Handy’s books are, his most important lesson may be his life. This collection of short reflections on life, work and people… reflects old age, but its spirit doesn’t. Handy’s later books are only indirectly about business… but paradoxically that is exactly why any business leader would profit from reading it. Sharp insights abound.
Review quote:
A thought-provoking recap of some of the prescient and radical ideas that marked his career, while also offering his touching final insights into life and death.
Biographical note:
Charles Handy was a writer, broadcaster and teacher, as well as a former oil executive, an economist, a professor at the London Business School, the Warden of St. George''s House in Windsor Castle and the chairman of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. He was born in Co. Kildare in Ireland, the son of an archdeacon, and educated in Ireland, England (Oxford University) and the USA (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). His many books include The Empty Raincoat, Gods of Management, The Second Curve and 21 Letters.